During many surgical procedures a surgeon is called upon to use a bone screw. A common example is when a bone plate is used to repair a bone fracture, and bone screws are used to secure the plate in place. The bone screws can be left in place with the bone plate until the bone has healed and then removed or left in place after that time.
The surgeon may be required to use various different lengths and sizes of bone screws for a particular surgical procedure. Thus, the surgical staff needs to carry a relatively large inventory of bone screws to have available for a procedure. Limiting these inventory needs would significantly reduce costs for a surgical outfit.
Bone screw designs and systems to address this problem have been proposed previously. For example, DE 19943594 A1 discloses one type of screw design having a plurality of separated thread segments where the screw can be separated between. Also, US 2003/0229354 A1 discloses a bone screw that can be cut with the aid of a cutting jig to adjust the length of the screw.
A need exists in the art to provide a bone screw design that can be readily cut before or during a surgical procedure to adjust the length of the screw to a desired length and where the screw is readily usable in the surgical procedure. A need also exists for a cutting instrument to be used to cut the screw to the desired length.